Birds, Carnage, Salvation: An Interview with George Klauba

Birds, Carnage, Salvation: An Interview with George Klauba ROBERT K. WALLACE Northern Kentucky University I first saw paintings by George Klauba at the New Bedford Art Museum in June 2005. Stubb was one of many that immediately caught, and held, my attention (see fig. 1). Few paintings have depicted humankind’s carnivorous essence in such a visceral way. Klauba’s transformation of Melville’s characters into bird-like creatures is inspired, and Stubb’s tearing beak is entirely appropriate for the surreal way in which Stubb is ripping raw meat from the body of the miniaturized whale, rendering the utensils in his blood-stained hands nearly superfluous. I first met the man who created this work at his home in Chicago in December 2007. When I next met Klauba at the Rockford Art Museum in Illinois in April 2009, the nineteen Moby-Dick paintings he had exhibited in New Bedford were joined by eighteen more he had painted in the subsequent four years.1 House and Study, Chicago, December 26, 2007 K lauba’s bungalow in the North Park section of Chicago is a twenty-five minute ride from O’Hare Airport. George and his wife Judith greet me at the door. They are a well-matched couple, tall, amiable, and responsive. They have been jointly interested in Melville since their marriage at the Seaman’s Bethel in New Bedford in 2006. Before lunch, George gave me a tour. We lingered in the living room maybe longer than he planned, for I could not take my eyes off a brand-new painting, Ahab Dismasted (fig. 2). This image was taking George’s adventure with the novel in a new direction, although he was not yet sure quite where or why. Ahab is standing full-length, alone, against the dark brown inner wall of the ship. He is tall and gaunt, bending down, about to attach his whalebone leg to the stump of his living leg. The gap between the two leg shapes holds your attention, until your eyes rise. There, around the shoulders, are the transparent C  2010 The Authors Journal compilation C  2010 The Melville Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1 Visions of Moby-Dick: 3 Contemporary Artists, Aileen Callahan, George Klauba, Mark Milloff (New Bedford Art Museum, June 6–September 2, 2005) and Moby Dick: Heart of the Sea, featuring George Klauba, Kathleen Piercefield, and Robert McCauley (Rockford Art Museum, April 17–June 5, 2009). 68 L E V I A T H A N A J O U R N A L O F M E L V I L L E S T U D I E S I N T E R V I E W W I T H G E O R G E K L A U B A Figure 1. George Klauba, Stubb, 2003, acrylic on panel, 18 × 14.5 inches. Collection of Lorry and Cara Lichtenstein. Figure 2. Ahab Dismasted, 2007, acrylic on panel, 24 × 18 inches. Courtesy of Ann Nathan Gallery. A J O U R N A L O F M E L V I L L E S T U D I E S 69 R O B E R T K . W A L L A C E bluish arms of an angel wrestling to pull Ahab away from the obsessive fix on what he has lost. The angelic blue shows brightly against the deep brown wood beams, as does the flesh of Ahab, who in this painting is fully human in his nakedness except again for Klauba’s distinctive avian face. Later in the day, Judith said this new painting made her wonder if human evolution were taking place in reverse, a question that could be asked of the series as a whole. The picture’s dark brown bulkhead connects Ahab Dismasted with a work that George now showed me down the hall in his study. This tiny room is a powerhouse of blended sensibilities. On the highest shelf just behind the doorway are two model ships that George made as a young man after returning home from service on a destroyer in the Navy. Around the room are other inspirations—a large Rockwell Kent...